Luckily, ISLE OF DOGS was there to reaffirm some much needed sentiment. Wes Anderson managed to turn a simple "boy and his dog" story into a genuine animated Japanese samurai epic and it's simply one of the very best films I've seen this year to date. If you're a dog owner, this will make you an even better dog owner...

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR certainly offered all the wonderful character interaction, banter and humor you could ask for in one of the upper-tier Marvel Universe movies before dropping the bomb. Is there any point left to spoiler alerts by now?

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE is not unfairly described as a new take on TAXI DRIVER... Joaquin Phoenix is mesmerizing while the film is as harsh, brutal, and sordid as you could imagine. It seems well nigh impossible to drag a ray of hope out of this one... and yet it's there.

1945 aspires to the company of SCHINDLER'S LIST with a modest, black-and-white drama set in a small Hungarian town at the end of WWII. While there is no graphic content to speak of, the relentless approach of two Hassidic Jews arriving for an unexplained visit sets off an inexorable implosion of guilt and terror as the village prepares for a wedding feast. Powerful, understated and highly recommended.

REVENGE is an amazingly intense, bloody, technically brilliant and truly troubling take on the I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE theme. Troubling not just because there's no actual "revenge" taking place, but because the story is offered up as something different for today's political climate. I may just have to come back and write an in-depth review for this one. The short version, however, is that it stands out in its (not so original) field if you have the stomach for it.

And with BAD SAMARITAN, I no longer think of Dean Devlin as the ID4/GODZILLA guy. Now he can Hitchcock with the best of them, and David Tennant is wonderfully... what's the word? I think "unstable" is perfect. Other than that, the less said the better.